who else is rallying to his defense? >> reporter: right now only one republican has publicly come out and said, hey, i'm going to support him. it's a republican senator from mississippi, but hagel has met with 60 senators. so he's sort of laid the groundwork and i think from what we're hearing, ultimately he's going to get the votes to move this through. >> all right, chris lawrence live at the pentagon for us, thank you very much. >>> about 16 minutes after the hour right now. i want to bring you up to speed on all the morning's top stories. here's christine romans with that. >>> a massive 1,000-mile-long line of massive and deadly storms targetsing the east coast. tornados, strong winds and flooding all threatening the south all the way up into new england. the damage is extensive. this is video from georgia, alabama, tennessee, kentucky. the storm killed two men, one in georgia, another in tennessee. >>> look at this epic firefight. an eight-alarm fire. you don't say that very often. an eight-alarm fire at a food proc